Imperial entanglements of modern social work education in India

ABSTRACT

This article concerns itself with the events surrounding the ‘Americanisation’ of social work education in India and aims to evaluate if this was an outcome of entanglements with imperialism—cultural, professional or moral. It looks at actors, within and beyond academic spaces, including missionaries and cold war politics as key contours in organizing the ‘American’ turn in social work education in India. Subsequent to the import of the ‘modern social work’ discipline to India, the episteme of social work was inferred to be more clinicalized and neo-liberal in its approach to social development. The article is a humble effort to understand if this ‘technology transfer’ of social work education, its models and methods, was a plain and simple emancipatory event or was also organized by the imperial interests?

KEYWORDS:

• Social work in India
• imperialism
• colonial modernity
• social work education
• Decolonial

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. The rhetoric of technology transfer reflects the post world war II transfer of knowledge and methods in social work to India, essentially by the efforts of US Technical Cooperation Agreement (TCA). This has been argued as a key factor behind dominant American models in social work education in India. Chatterjee et al. (2013) describe it as ‘knowledge transfer from the rich countries to the poor countries’ which in social work included ‘efforts of community organization, community development, and social development’. They find this idea crucial for the ‘direct practice’.

2. Laymen’s foreign missions inquiry. Commission of appraisal., Hocking, W. Ernest’s (1932).

3. Annual Report, 1924; American Board of Commissioner of Foreign Missions.

4. Laymen’s foreign mission inquiry. Commission of appraisal., Petty, O. A’s (1933).

5. Report of the Social Service and Public Administration Committee of the Central Advisory Board of Education in India, 1940, together with the decisions of the Board thereon (1940), Bureau of Education: New Delhi in Digitzed Books, Dhananjayrao Gadgil Library, GIPE, Pune. Identifier: GIPE034818

6. ‘Wheat Loan Interest Fund Scheme’ (1953) Education Department, A1 Branch (File No: 10–5/53-A1) and ‘India Wheat Loan Educational Exchange Program’ (1953) (File No: F-4/5-53), National Archive of India.

7. MS Gore to Lilian Epsy of Foreign Division, YWCA America [smith_ssc_324_r231_m008] India, Sophia Smith Collection of Women’s History, MS 00324, Smith College Special Collections, Northampton, Massachusetts.

8. Ibid.

9. Minutes, International Division Committee, 1966 (p. 4) in [smith_ssc_324_r359_m010] International Division minutes and reports, Sophia Smith Collection of Women’s History, MS 00324, Smith College Special Collections, Northampton, Massachusetts.

10. Lilian Espy of YWCA to Kilson Compton, Department of State, US (1953) in [smith_ssc_324_r231_m008]India, Sophia Smith Collection of Women’s History, MS 00324, Smith College Special Collections, Northampton, Massachusetts. Pp: 410–172.

11. YWCA (1957). (Retrieved from Sophia Smith Collection).

12. Simons (1954) in [smith_ssc_324_ywm_v048_n007], YWCA of the U.S.A. Records (MS 324), Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Mass.

13. YWCA (1950) ‘The Fifty Third Annual Report of YWCA of the National YWCA of India, Burma and Ceylon 1949’ Lucknow in ‘National YWCA of India Request of Grant’ (1954) in D3- Ministry of Education, National Archive of India (350–372) File No: MINISTRY of EDUCATION_D3_1954_NA_F-2-22_54.

14. United Nations (1951) Youth Welfare in Southeast Asia: Report of United Nations Seminar Held at Simla, in D7- Education, National Archive of India. File No: MINISTRY of EDUCATION_D7_1956_NA_F-9-6_56, p 9–53.

15. A R Wadia (1954) in Minutes of Afternoon Session of 15^th February in Roundtable Conference on the Teaching of the Social Sciences in South Asia. A-5 Education. National Archive of India, File No: MINISTRY OF EDUCATION_A5_1953_NA_F-7-3_53. Pp 96.

16. India, Sophia Smith Collection of Women’s History, MS 00324, Smith College Special Collections, Northampton, Massachusetts. 600–630.

Additional information

Funding

The authors have no funding to report.

Notes on contributors

Abhijeet Mishra

Abhijeet Mishra holds MA  in Social Work and MPhil in Sociology from the Universities of Delhi and Hyderabad respectively.